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About MATE

The primary mission of the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center is to provide the marine technical workforce with appropriately educated workers and to use marine technology to create interest in and improve STEM education.

MATE Competition Philosophy

The MATE ROV competition is about student learning. It is designed to be an event that challenges students to apply the physics, math, electronics, and engineering skills they are learning in the classroom to solving problems from the marine workplace. Mentors (teachers, parents, working professionals) are expected to limit their input to educational and inspirational roles and encouraged to focus on the benefits of the learning process and not simply on “winning” the competition.

PORT CITIES OF THE FUTURE: Commerce, Entertainment, Health, and Safety

MATE’s international student underwater robotics (remotely operated vehicle or ROV) competition consists of an international event and a network of 28 (and growing!) regional contests that take place across the United States and in Canada, Hong Kong, Scotland, Egypt, Russia, Turkey, and Bermuda. Student teams from upper elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, home schools, community colleges, universities, and community organizations, such as the Boys and Girls Club and 4-H, participate.

The 2017 MATE International ROV competition will take place Friday, June 23rd - Sunday, June 25th at Long Beach City College.

Thank you all for participating in this year’s MATE Pacfic Northwest Regional ROV Challenge - it was a great day! The vehicles were fascinating, the competition stiff, and all proceeded (mostly) smoothly to our final awards presentation. The individual scores and awards are shown below - congratulations to all! Special thanks to our sponsors and groups that came with extra experiences, including Ocean Gate Foundation, UW-ROV, MTS Student Section, and foundry10 - we appreciate the extra bit of inspiration you provided beyond MATE’s missions.

At the MATE International Competition in June we’ll be represented in Ranger Class by the CADMUS team from SeaTech 4-H in Mt. Vernon. In Explorer Class, it’s still possible we’ll be represented by two teams - AMNO & CO from Seattle, and Team PSI from Mt. Vernon. Each of those teams has one more chance to qualify for a trip to Houston - good luck!

If you’re interested in engaging colleagues and others in this event, check this webpage when school starts again for dates of our "Introduction to ROVs” workshop. We offer this every year to be sure mentors, coaches and interested parents get some hands-on time with the vehicles and basic controls, as well as ways they can be used in both formal and informal STEM education. In 2017, we may also be offering an advanced class on cameras, waterproofing, and better thruster controls - stay tuned.

I need to have all of your students registered and associated with your team ASAP. My emails next week will be more directed and hopefully won't turn nasty ;-). We still have more teams than I like that have zero students registered. Please have this completed as early as you can.

A reminder, SIDs and Spec sheets are due next week. I did receive some notices that my emails regarding the requirements were not totally accurate, I apologize. We will accept neatly hand drawn SIDs from Navigator and Scout. The fuse calculations are only required for Ranger teams, but Navigator and Scout must list the value of the fuse on the SID.

Do you have Anderson Powerpole connectors for all your teams/ROVs? If not, send us your name, shipping address, and how many you need and we’ll get those to you, plus one for attachment to a battery for testing vehicles. We’ll send pre-crimped pig-tails so your teams will need to solder those to the power-wires of their ROVs. Your teams MUST come to the Regional competition with these connectors as all our batteries will have those installed on them. We will NOT accept vehicles with banana-plugs for competition. For more info on the powerpoles and how to install them, please see this presentation.

So feel free to call or email with any questions. Ask early and we can hopefully diffuse some of the insanity that is Saturday morning.

With our move to Anderson Powerpoles this year, this presentation describes what they are and how exactly to install them on your ROV. Be sure to follow the conventions in this presentation for installation, we will be using this to build our power stations for competition. Please ask early if you have any questions. We know this is a big change but it is much safer and more reliable.

Additionally we had many requests for our Intro ROV presentation, please find it here.

All EXPLORER teams from the PNW will be required to attend the regional on May 7th and record their mission task attempt. We will record and submit your video to the MATE center for you if you like. If you have your own method for recording that you would prefer you are welcome to use that as well. We are requiring this because it is our belief that the EXPLORER teams are an integral part of our regional. You show the SCOUT teams what they can aspire to and give inspiration to RANGER students who are graduating. Additionally we want to ensure that the PNW is represented by the best we have to offer. We do this by working closely with our teams and personally vetting their performance at our regional. As always, please contact us with any questions or concerns you may have. Good luck.

I am happy to announce we were able to accommodate all who applied to this years introductory workshop. This years workshop will take place in our new Ocean Technology Center which is in the basement of the Ocean Teaching Building Please see the map below. The entrance we will be using is on the west side of the building near the S6 parking area. Please note you must pay to park on campus before noon at the gate, after noon parking on campus is free (if you need to move you car during lunch you can). This will be a very long, busy and intense day of learning about ROVs. This is a very hands on workshop so be prepared to get dirty and possibly wet with salt water. The above schedule is subject to change depending on the class. If you cannot attend this workshop for any reason please let me know as soon as possible.

It starts! Well for most of you, the build process has already started but we are officially kicking off the 2016 PNW Regional Challenge! There are a few changes to rules for our regional this year, I will pull all of that together on to a single page in the next few weeks, but keep checking here and the MATE forums for information. One major change that will affect you early is that we will no longer be using banana plugs to connect to the batteries, all teams (Scout, Navigator, Ranger and Explorer) must use Anderson Power Poles as their connection. The link will take you to a site where you can find the connections, you may find them cheaper on Amazon. There is no difference in the size of the connection for the 15, 30 and 45 amp contacts, we recommend you use the 45 amp contacts and 10 ga wire. You will still need to include a fuse rated to your class.

If you haven't already looked, all the Mission documentation has been posted. Go through these with your usual fine toothed combs. A new thing for the documentation is a revision page added to the front. Keep an eye on this as changes to the documentation do occur and we will be using the most recent version on the day of competition.

Important Dates:

January 16 - Basic Workshop - Registration coming soon

January 30 - Prop Building Morning Rules Afternoon

Late February - Scout to Navigator - Registration coming soon

Late March - Trouble Shooting Workshop - Registration coming soon

May 7 - Competition Day

Additionally, registration fees will be increaseing this year for all classes, see below.